This invention relates to a server for efficiently and conveniently maintaining the temperature of chilled wine or other beverage or food in a container while at the same time displaying the beverage or food.
In U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,255,944, 4,393,665 and 4,388,813, server constructions are described for effectively and efficiently maintaining the temperature of beverages at a stable level over a fairly long period of time. This is accomplished by providing a housing open at the top for receiving a bottle to be cooled, with the housing having a side wall which substantially surrounds the side exterior of the bottle. The side wall is made of a heat conductive material and is maintained in contact with ice either located within the side wall in an interior compartment or outside the side wall in an exterior compartment. The ice, even though in contact with only a portion of the side wall, serves to cool the entire side wall and this results in a cool barrier surrounding the bottle to prevent radiative heat transfer to the bottle.
The above-described construction has proven very popular with the consuming public both because of its efficiency and its compactness. However, the heat conductive material used to construct the side wall is typically extruded aluminum or other metallic alloy which, of course, is opaque and therefore prevents visual inspection of a bottle contained in the server. The use of such heat conductive material is also fairly expensive. It was believed that heat conductive material was necessary to completely surround the bottle in order to maintain the desired temperature, and thus the cost and lack of ability to view the bottles in the servers were deemed justified.